


wait for me in the sky

by haanten



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, M/M, also because i make the rules, poe crashes a lot of ships! but he's still a good pilot!, set some time after tfa and definitely doesn't line up with the other two movies lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haanten/pseuds/haanten
Summary: Poe accepted that he might die young the moment he signed up to become a pilot. He knew the risks, the danger, the feelings of constant fear when he used to wait for his parents to come home after a mission when he was young. He’d prepare himself to see a stranger walk into the house and tell he would never see his mother or father again. But he never really thought that that’s what someone would have to do for him.Somebody would have to tell Finn that he died, that he went quick when his ship crashed. Someone would tell Rey he felt no pain, someone would tell General Organa their best pilot had just been taken out. Jessika would watch as his X-wing fell. Or maybe they’d all hear it over the commlinks, Poe didn’t know.All he knew was his X-wing had lost both right side wings and there was a lot of fire.(or where Poe crashes his ship, causes a scene, and BB-8 yells at him the entire time.)
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 16
Kudos: 166





	wait for me in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> so I started this in early 2016 (lol) and just went balls to the walls and finished it recently so most of what I went off of story wise is what I knew of in 2016, which was only tfa and the poe dameron comics that had come out at the time, so that's where this story is. the working title for this was 'poesph, you fool!' and I think it's fitting.
> 
> anyway, I like star wars, that's all c: also stan finn and poe dameron, we always win, even when we lose.

Poe accepted that he might die young the moment he signed up to become a pilot. He knew the risks, the danger, the feelings of constant fear when he used to wait for his parents to come home after a mission when he was young. He’d prepare himself to see a stranger walk into the house and tell he would never see his mother or father again. But he never really thought that that’s what someone would have to do for him. 

Somebody would have to tell Finn that he died, that he went quick when his ship crashed. Someone would tell Rey he felt no pain, someone would tell General Organa their best pilot had just been taken out. Jessika would watch as his X-wing fell. Or maybe they’d all hear it over the commlinks, Poe didn’t know.

All he knew was his X-wing had lost both right side wings and there was _a lot_ of fire.

A week ago, Poe was at the base on D’Qar. He was training the new recruits, the ones with wide eyes shining with hope. General Organa said that’s exactly what Poe looked like when she had asked him to become a resistance pilot. Now she scolded him that he _needed to get some sleep, Dameron. Defeating the First Order isn’t your entire responsibility._

He did get some sleep, until the _damn alarms_ woke him up in the middle of the night. He woke not to the sounds of both Finn _and_ Rey snoring in the beds next to him, or the soft flush of sunlight slipping through the curtains, but to piercing alarms that sounded like the devil himself was screaming into Poe’s ear. He wanted to fall back asleep, to roll over and let the other pilots take care of whatever the hell the alarms were about, but Finn was already up and throwing all of his pillows at Poe’s face, with excellent aim, Finn would add.

Poe attempted to pull on a pair of pants before Jessika burst through the door, which surprised him enough he lost his balance and fell over.

“The general needs you guys right now,” she said, sounding uncharacteristically worried. She looked down at Poe who was still lying on the ground, face down. “Pull yourself together, Dameron,” Jessika teased, before shooting a polite smile at Finn and a suspiciously warm one at Rey. 

“Piss off, Testor,” Poe mumbled, but it sounded more like his stomach rumbled rather than he said something.

After what seemed like forever, Rey finally peeled Poe off of the floor and shoved him and Finn out the door before closing it behind her. Flashing lights lit up the base with people in new places every time the lights blinked back on and plunging the scene into semi-darkness when they turned off.

The gravity of the situation, whatever it was, still hadn’t seemed to hit Poe, Rey and Finn noticed. He still looked like he was asleep, like he still thought he was dreaming. Poe’s eyes drifted around the base like a bored youngling whose parents dragged them along to some kind of meeting. Rey’s eyes met Finn’s as they seemingly communicated without words, and Poe remained unfazed to everything that was happening.

“Poe? You with us, buddy?” Finn said gently, grabbing Poe’s hand as they all kept walking towards the general’s command center. Poe’s whole aura went from asleep to alert. His shoulders tensed back to how they were usually set, his eyes hardened and narrowed as he scanned the base, as if he was seeing it for the first time.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m here,” Poe responded quietly, his voice a deep contrast to his stature. “I just have, I don’t know, a bad feeling? Something’s about to happen.”

“I feel it, too,” Rey whispered, looking up into the stars, the lights dancing across her face. “There’s a disturbance.”

* * *

General Organa was at what was deemed the head of the table even though it was a circle when the three of them walked in. Luke was standing beside her on her left with his eyes closed. Rey had brought Luke back when she came back from the island she found him on, Ahch-To. Poe had faded memories of Luke Skywalker back when he lived on Yavin IV with his mother and father. He was the one who gave them the tree. It grew to extraordinary heights and towered over their small home.

His mother loved that tree, more than anything, Poe would think sometimes when he was younger. It was riveting when Luke would come and visit to see how the tree and his mother were doing. Getting to meet the savior of the galaxy was one thing for a kid, but growing up calling him Uncle Luke was another.

Poe remembered both him and Ben would call Luke that. 

Rey moved to where Luke stood, turning her head to hear what Luke was whispering into her ear. Poe didn’t bother trying to figure out what they were talking about. Jedi were mystic and even if he had heard what they were saying, it wouldn’t have meant anything to Poe. All Poe noticed was the empty space on the right side of General Organa. 

It didn’t matter how many days have passed, Han Solo was still an open wound in Poe’s heart. He was a father to Poe after his own, and Leia his mother. Even if she wouldn't admit it, Leia loved Poe like her own and would do anything to keep him safe. But she could never deny the Resistance a force like Poe’s leadership and piloting, so she sent him out, day after day, on missions where it was very possible he wouldn’t return. 

The Organa-Solo mess of a family had become Poe’s when he joined the New Republic Starfleet. He and Ben grew up together. They played heroes in the backyard of Poe’s home on Yavin IV, and now they were fighting their own, very real, war against each other.

“You wanted to see us, General?” Poe spoke up after a tick too long of silence. “Because, if I got woken up for a drill, I am going rogue once we’re done here, respectfully, ma’am.”

Finn jabbed Poe right in the ribs after that, his eyes wide. Finn still wasn’t used to how casually Poe spoke to General Organa. He was still stuck on if he made one tiny slip up, it was back to reconditioning until he was made into the perfect, obedient soldier.

“Good to know you’re actually sleeping, Commander. But we have bigger issues than your beauty sleep,” General Organa quipped back, a hint of a smile playing across her lips before she realized they weren’t alone in the room anymore.

Between from when Rey, Finn, and Poe got there and when Poe spoke up, the room seemed to have almost filled. Some newer officers had a slight look of shock on their face from the quick banter between the two. It was still and silent before General Organa started up again.

“The First Order is here and they’re planning an attack.”

Inevitable. Predictable. Still sucked, though.

 _What a goddamn opener,_ Poe thought.

* * *

Poe was tired, he just wanted a good, long nap, but apparently no one could have anything nice during times of war. He hadn’t meant to sigh so loud when General Organa made the announcement, but hey, it happened anyway.

General Organa debriefed the room while Poe sort of dazed away. The First Order was _here._ A place they thought was safe and another base down the drain. He would miss D’Qar, considering they were about to probably get it destroyed. He wouldn’t enjoy watching the canopy trees burn, or watching _his_ _pilots_ dropping nose-first into them.

Such is life.

The air grew uneasy as the general reached the end of her speech. The First Order planned to draw them out and overpower the scrappy forces they had, nothing too different from their usual techniques. 

“Rey, Finn, I want you two to fly the Millenium Falcon,” General Organa decided. Rey’s eyes grew wide from where she was standing next to Luke. They locked with Finn’s who's looked just as surprised, if not more, still not realizing their actions had garnered the trust of most all of the resistance forces.

“But general, sir, ma’am,” Finn stumbled out, which charmed pretty much everyone in the room, “Why us?”

“Because you two are the only ones who can fly it semi-decently,” she stated, simply and sure.

“I take offense to that, General,” Poe said, mock hurt in his voice and a mostly deadpan look on his face.

“Dameron,” General Organa said, looking straight into Poe’s eyes, with her own holding a mischievous twinkle Poe hadn’t seen in a long time, “Shut your smart ass up. You’re going to be making sure their semi-decent flying doesn’t get themselves killed. Understood?”

 _Yes, Mom_ , Poe thought. “Yes, sir,” Poe said.

“Everyone’s dismissed. Wait for your signals at your stations,” the general said, her voice held an uneasy edge to it most would have missed. “It’s been an honor working with all of you.”

Hearing the general say those words finally dropped the curtain on what they were up against. _It’s been an honor._ She wasn’t expecting to see all of them come back alive, hell, she probably thought she was losing most of her ranks. Rebels were being sent off into an almost promised death sentence.

A death sentence they were all fully aware of when joining the Resistance.

Officers all rushed around the room to get to their designated positions, while Poe just watched. They reminded him of some kind of insect on Yavin IV that he couldn’t remember the name of. He’d poke a colony of them and watch as they scattered in different directions. _How flattering,_ Poe thought. _The Resistance is a bunch of insects. What a confidence booster._

Everyone had left the room when Poe looked up again. General Organa was still in position at the table, her posture stiff. They shared the silence like a short time to mourn all that they had lost.

“General,” Poe started, but stopped himself short. “Leia,” he tried again, “What do we do with him?” Poe rubbed his hand across his face, lingering before falling back to his side. He was so _tired._

“ _Kylo._ What do we do with _Kylo?_ ”

Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. Poe couldn’t remember which one he used to know. He couldn’t remember which one he taught to climb trees while they played in the forests of Yavin IV. The one who thought it would be a good idea to try and sneak around literally _everywhere he shouldn’t_ and bring Poe along, who would trip over his own feet whenever given the chance. He’s since learned how to hold his own on an undercover op. Maybe Poe was hunting the kid who was scared of being alone when Han and Leia would stay over to discuss strategies, so Poe would scootch his sleeping bag a little closer until the kid fell asleep. Or maybe he was hunting the monster who murdered an entire village in front of his eyes. He didn’t know anymore.

Poe wondered if he still felt alone. It didn’t matter, but he still wondered.

“Terminate Kylo Ren on sight, Poe,” General Organa said. “But if there’s a case you, just you, I won’t ask this of anyone else, can bring him in alive, without risking other lives,” she trailed off. Her voice was sad in a way Poe hadn’t heard in a long while. Years and years of waiting and hoping finally coming to fruition, and she had no idea how it would turn out. “I need to see him. I need to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

Poe walked out of the commander center feeling nauseous, but pushed it away once he saw his squadron was waiting for him. Technically, all squads were his squad, and the Resistance had been losing so many pilots recently there hadn’t been time to assign pilots to new squad leaders, so existing leaders like himself had only ragtag teams to lead. 

They were just kids, Poe noticed, but instead of laughter lines creasing around their mouths, they had worry lines between their eyebrows. He had no other choice than to send them out to war if they wanted a chance to have a _real_ life. But he didn't have to send them to their deaths. That was his choice. 

“Pava, lead them along the outskirts, come in for an attack, then get the hell out of there. Play cat and mouse with ‘em,” Poe said to Jessika. She hadn't expected him to be so curt with whatever he was planning. 

Her surprise got the best of her. Her normally hard and confident voice shook when she spoke. “What do you mean? Where are you going, Poe? They aren't under my command, I can't.”

“We're outnumbered three to one, at best, Jessika,” Poe said, his voice resigned, but the underlying passion and faith was still there. “If I can find Ren, we have a chance. These kids would follow you into the suns if they had to. I trust you.”

It was quiet around them for a moment. The starting of engines just seemed to fade into the background. 

“You and your chances, Dameron,” Jessika said softly. “They're going to get you killed.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, reaching to hug him but thought against it, choosing to shake it gently before pulling away. 

“You know I like to bet the whole house,” Poe joked, stretching his arms out as he turned to walk away. “I still owe you at least 200!” His response was almost endearing if it hadn't been for the crushing realization behind it. It wasn't like he was telling Jessika he owed her money, but more of he owed her everything and he knew he would never get to repay her. 

And then, Poe turned around. He walked back to where Jessika was standing and hugged her. In that moment, Jessika knew Poe was afraid of death just as much as her, but in each other's arms, nothing could hurt them. They weren't afraid.

“Keep them safe, you hear, Captain?” he said, the title rolling off his tongue as flirtatious as he dared, “Jessika Pava? Take care of yourself.” There was a sense of finality in his voice. A tear rolled down his cheek that he didn't bother to wipe away. Poe broke the hug and turned back towards his X-wing and climbed in. He stood before the top came down to give Jessika a mock salute. 

“Godspeed, space traveler,” his voice rang. BB-8 chirped and blipped from the wing next to him. 

Poe sat down as the top came over his head and shut. His hands fluttered across the control panel of his ship. Once everything was started and ready to go, he sat there listening to the hum of the engine. The sound could have been a lullaby to Poe. He looked out of the glass encasing around him to see his- _Jessika’s-_ squadron take flight. 

A sense of pride swelled in him, not because they were pilots he'd help train, but because he knew most all of them didn't want to go out there, but they did anyway. 

Poe took off into the sky. 

* * *

So, his initial plan hadn't worked at all and he was now in free fall, plummeting towards the ground of D’Qar. He had just lost sight of Rey and Finn trailing some nimble First Order ship supposedly carrying both Kylo Ren and Hux when the smoke finally blocked all of his field of vision. 

“Guys, I messed up extraordinarily!” Poe screamed through the commlinks. BB-8 beeped and whirred, saying something Poe never expected to hear from BB-8. 

(<Fuck!> BB-8 had screeched. Plus some other colorful language Poe suspected they had learned from a _certain_ ancient droid.)

“Watch your language BB-8!” Poe said, surprised. He heard Rey’s soft and scared laugh crackle over the waning connection between the two ships. “And we're _not_ going to die,” he added quietly, determined not to contradict his own words. The X-wing shuddered as it started losing altitude faster than it had before.

“I’m going to have to ground her! There’s no way to pull up missing my right side,” Poe yelled over the sound of his dash repeatedly crackling and screaming at him, and over BB-8’s new found love of cursing. Poe was going to have a stern talking to with Artoo after this, maybe even put him back into low power mode himself.

“We just got here and you’re already falling out of the sky for us, Dameron? How sweet,” a familiar voice drawled, and a pack of starfighters shot passed him and into the fray.

“Snap, you bastard,” Poe laughed out. “When did you all get back?”

“Just now, Black Leader,” Snap said easily, referring to him as his old title as opposed to Commander, and like they hadn’t just come back from a two week recon mission General Organa wouldn’t let him go on, saying there was something she needed him here for. Guess this shitshow was it. “And ready to follow instruction.”

“No shit,” Poe murmured. “Blue Leader, your orders: Stay alive while I run this bad boy into the ground and find something else lying around. You know what to do.”

“Great advice, Black Leader,” Poe heard Karé add, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I didn’t think of not dying before.” 

“I will not hesitate to write you up for insubordination-” and then all of Poe’s outgoing transmissions were static.

“Poe?” Finn’s voice came through rough and out of breath as he swung around in the gunner’s position of the Falcon. “Poe!”

Poe couldn’t hear him, or anyone for that matter, with the pressure in his cockpit building as he dropped too fast into D’Qar’s atmosphere. He really was about to do this. He, Poe Dameron, best pilot in the Resistance, was about to purposefully _ground his starfighter_ , his pride and joy of an X-wing, Black One and all its beautiful, crackhead modifications, in the middle of a First Order invasion, nonetheless. He guessed there’s a first time for everything, but there’s also a last time if he dies trying to do it.

BB-8, bless the Maker, wasn’t really helping, more gurgling growing increasingly louder as the ground came up to meet them in the sky.

“I know, buddy, I know!” Poe tried to hush. “Happy beeps, pal! We’ll be back in the sky in no time!”

<Friend-Poe! It has been an honor working with you!>

 _It has been an honor working with you._ First Leia, and now BB. _Ye of little faith, you bastards,_ Poe thought, and he could not believe BB would take _now_ as the time to break his heart into tiny little pieces. He couldn’t help but reflect on the rest of the battles they had seen together, all the scrapes passed death and lucky getaways, and Poe would deny that the tears in his eyes were from hearing this from his astromech and would blame them on the descent, but this wasn’t going to be their last one, he was sure of that. 

“Excuse me, but I’m a great pilot and you know that, bud,” Poe spoke softly into the line between him and BB-8. “Don’t call time before I’ve finished landing.” 

A look of determination crossed his face and staying there as he broke the atmosphere and sped passed the forests of D’Qar. The entire X-wing shook with effort to keep it up as gravity clawed at the ship. He was aiming for an empty landing strip towards the back of the base, seeing as all available pilots were in the air already, _or dead,_ he thought briefly, not allowing himself to fall into guilt just yet. With the combined speed and pressure, his trusty right wing finally popped off as he closed both sides for landing stability, and as he scrambled for control over his ship, he touched down hard and skid across the landing strip, screeching on the concrete and kicking up a whole lot of dust and sparks. The impact of the landing slowed him considerably as he didn’t necessarily come to a stop naturally, but more slammed into the industrial metal door of a hangar and created quite the dent.

This was where Poe thought he was dead for a couple of seconds, because the ringing in his ears was loud as all hell, and his _neck_ , Maker, it felt like someone had picked him up by his head and swung him around. Turns out, he’s not dead, and a good portion of the ringing was BB-8’s screaming at Poe to wake up.

<Poe! Poe! Poe! Wake up! Wake up! Time to fly! Let’s find another ship! Poe!->

“Alright, alright, BB,” Poe grunted, taking off his helmet and unstrapping himself from his seat. He kissed his open palm and pressed it to the top of his cover before opening it up. “Thanks, mom,” he whispered, and louder to BB-8, “I’m going, see? Moving here. Some of us have stiff legs, not spheres, buddy.”

BB warbled up at him as he climbed out of his destroyed ship. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t exploded yet, and he didn’t really want to stick around and watch _his ship_ do… that. But he allowed himself a moment to question how the _fuck_ he did _that_ , all in a matter of minutes, really. His charm must finally be wearing off on the universe.

BB-8 sped off ahead of him, shooting into the hangar in search of a flyable ship. The thing with being a pilot was that it meant you had your ship, and you didn’t really fly anything else. Poe had been flying Black One since his stint with the New Republic Fleet, before he technically stole it and was accused of desertion of post. His friends flew their ships, and usually, when a pilot went down, so did their ship, so the Resistance didn’t just have spare ships lying around. They didn’t have that luxury, they could barely smack together the ships they had now.

Ground fighters and pathfinders were scrambling across the hangar, rushing to put as much as they could into evacuation transport. He tried not to get in their way as he more or less stumbled through the hangar himself. He spotted BB-8 weaving through the legs of the running fighters and cursed the droid for not having feet or something. 

“Commander!” He heard from somewhere behind him. “Dameron!” 

It was General Organa, standing near one of the evac ships gearing for departure, worry on her face masked by great annoyance at seeing Poe right now.

“General!” He made his way to her through the madness of the ground. Poe really never could understand why fighters would choose to stay on the ground when they could fly, but to each their own, and the ground fighters were an invaluable part to the Resistance. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“I wish I could say the same,” the general sigh-yelled, ever ingenuitive, over the noisiness of the hangar. “But I just heard from almost all of my pilots up there that you nosedived back here, on fire might I add. Nice touch, Commander.” Poe shrugged, a soft smile on his face, but winced as the movement pulled at the muscles in his back and neck, forever grateful for the copious amounts of adrenaline pumping through his system. 

“You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess,” he bullshitted, rubbing his forehead before looking around for BB-8 rolling around.

The general looked like she didn’t want to agree, but did anyway.

“Do, uh, do we got any ships I can use to get back out there? Black One is out of service, indefinitely,” Poe shuffled on his feet, almost sheepish, like he was a kid asking his mother for another one of something special after he had lost the other one.

“Poe,” Leia sighed, he really had to stop making her do that. “We’ve got every able fighter pilot out there on the western side of the base, so every _other_ pilot can get off planet eastwise with half of all of our forces onto a new base that Han had scoped out years ago, which we don’t even know is safe, because Han’s a space pirate and a scoundrel who would’ve probably felt comfortable in the middle of the shittiest place in the galaxy. _And!_ -”

She was about to launch into a full scale rant against Han and his poor taste in safehouses when BB-8 rammed itself into Poe’s shins because apparently Poe wasn’t listening to whatever _Hero of the Galaxy BB-8_ had to say.

<General and Friend-Poe, there appears to be a TYE-wing in the back of the hangar acquired from a past involvement with First Order forces.>

“BB,” Poe kneeled down to be level with the droid, “you’ve got to be kidding me. A TYE-wing is almost worse than trying to get Black One back in the sky.”

“You’re out of options, Commander,” the general said, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Get in the TYE-wing, or get your ass in gear and start putting shit in the transport.”

“Yessir,” Poe responded, patting BB in the direction of the TYE before standing back up. He turned to the general and gave her a sloppy salute. “See you soon, general.”

She waved him off as he turned to run after BB-8 swerving through the crowd. She hoped she got to see a least a little bit of Poe flying that piece of garbage before this was over.

The TYE-wing wasn’t much, but Poe wasn’t expecting much, and he was still disappointed. It looked like a pile of scrap metal, if he was being completely honest. He made fleeting eye contact with a passing pathfinder who just looked back and forth from him and the ship with bewilderment. Poe shrugged, rolling his eyes and getting a start to check that the ship could even lift off the ground.

The ship had been stolen after one of him missions before Starkiller had happened. He didn’t know exactly why they had taken it, but spare parts weren’t something the resistance was particularly swimming in, so essentially, the TYE-wing _was_ scrap metal. Luckily, it hadn’t been completely torn apart yet, at least luckily, he hopes, if the thing didn’t die on him in the middle of the flight.

Poe hoisted himself into the cockpit of the wing, startling similar to the TIE fighter he and Finn had stolen months earlier. The dash was dusty from stagnation. He settled himself into his seat when he realised BB-8’s chirps were quieter than he was used to.The droid sped around the bottom of the ship by the docking material, trying to find the droid docking station. 

<Friend-Poe! It appears this ship does not have a station for BB-8. Time to find a new ship!> They beeped, making to scurry back through the hangar.

 _So help me-_ Poe thought. “Bee! Wait,” he called after his droid. “Let me just-,” he sighed. “Let me just, I don’t know, strap you in behind me, what the hell.” The wing didn’t have a behind gunner position like the fighters, so he didn’t see why _not_ to shove a droid there. BB-8 chimed in agreement, questioning whether Poe would be able to lift them.

“We’re going to have a little talk about your confidence in me when this is all over, Bee,” Poe wheezed out after he had gotten BB into the space behind him. He had to forgo one of his own seat straps to wrap it backwards around the seat to secure his droid. Having flown both the predecessors of this monstrosity of a ship, the Y-wing and TIE fighter, Poe knew most of what he was doing, but there was no telling what the ship was actually capable of without powering it up.

While performing his preflight checks, Poe called over his shoulder, “There anyway you can connect to the ship, buddy?” The familiar whirr of BB-8’s extendable arm answered him, followed by the sound of crackling wires as it slammed the arm through some circuitry without completely destroying it and an affirmative warble.

“Alright, good enough for me,” he said. “Here we go.” The engine groaned and struggled to pick the ship off the ground, and hovered for a good three seconds before it sputtered out and lurched the ship back to the ground. Poe groaned and redid everything he had done before, this time the ship stayed up. “O-okay, let’s hope we still got some luck left in us, huh, buddy?”

BB-8 tittered back, and the pilot tried to fly them back up into the action, keyword: tried. The TYE-wing managed to combine all of the flaws in the Y-wing and TIE fighters and had no advantages to it, either. It was slow and had absolutely no shields, but it had two laser cannons, at least, so he wasn’t totally defenseless, but he was basically a slow moving target once he got into the thick of things again. He just had to not get hit. Sounds easy enough.

The battle above was getting closer, lights of firing lasers and explosions of ships illuminating the pod of the ship as it unevenly ascended. Engines wheezed, chugging half reliably as they broke atmosphere, finally reaching space.

“Get me communications with the squadrons up here, Bee,” Poe spoke, hanging his ship back before he got a read on the current situation. BB-8 chimed for a second and then the cockpit was filled with the commotion of what was going on.

“What the fu-!” someone, most likely Jess, screamed over the comms, which Poe interrupted with a loud, “ _Hello!_ And what the _hell_ is going on?”

“Jesus, Dameron! Where have you been and where are you? We’re getting spanked up here!” Snap responded, his voice tense. “I expected you back ten minutes ago!”

“Yeah, well,” Poe almost whined, “it’s not exactly easy crashing your ship and finding this Ugly, much less getting her to fly.” His head was pounding from the crash and the previous adrenaline rush was wearing off, but he was kind of actively preparing for another one.

“ _Jesus, Dameron,_ ” Jess giggled, she had the audacity to giggle now, _and_ to her (only technically, she would remind him) commanding officer, no less, “are you flying the fuckin’ DIE-wing?”

“TYE-wing, actually,” he corrected, ignoring Jess’s indignant huff and muffled explosion sound, because really, she was right. There was no way this thing would make it out of this battle unscathed. “What’s the-.”

“Poe!” he was interrupted by Finn, bless the man, he was not feeling up for explaining himself. “Rey’s taking on Kylo again!” Poe half sighed, half screamed, hands scrambling across his dash to find his sonar, trying to pick up the Falcon’s location. If Finn was contacting him, that meant he was still in the ship, and where he was, Rey was somewhere in the vicinity.

“Bee, could you do me a favor?”

<Yes, Friend-Poe!>

“Find Finn’s location?”

<In the Star Destroyer’s hangar, plotting fastest course to Friend-Finn!>

A smile crossed Poe’s face and he reached a hand around to pat his droid, his other scuttling about on the TYE’s dash in order to give enough power to his thrusters to get across the spatial no man’s land ahead of him. BB-8 raised an extension up and over Poe and projected the path to Rey and Finn across the windshield. It was almost a straight shot from where he was now. And that was when Poe had the dumbest idea of his life.

Back on the base, Leia could feel Poe making the dumbest decision of his life. She sighed and continued on.

“BB-8, start shutting down all programs that aren’t keeping us alive or in the air,” Poe ordered. “Black One,” BB-8 made a sound from their makeshift dock to tell everyone that this was definitely _not_ Black One, “to former Black Squadron: I’m getting into that hangar.”

“Kid, you’ll get torn to shreds out here,” L’ulo called back, his A-wing playing cat and mouse with some TIE fighters, someone following orders, miraculously. 

“Exactly why I need you guys. I’m going to divert all the power I can to the thrusters,” he paused to take a deep breath, “and just fucking launch myself into the hangar as quick as possible.” Poe couldn’t believe what he was doing either, and he could only hope that his pilots trusted him enough to do this, because he trusted them more than enough to get him there.

Karé said, “are you sure, Commander?” just as Jess singsonged, “yessir!”

“As sure as I can be,” Poe’s voice was steady but his hands shook as he manually powered down the blaster functions. He’s going to have to rely entirely on the pilots around him, not just _his_ pilots, but the rest of the resistance pilots and those of the First Order. Just flying was something he hadn’t done in a long time, and not to say that shooting yourself into a limited window of a hangar on a spaceship while the entire Resistance and some of the First Order were battling it out in between was ‘just flying’, he was just used to being able to shoot back.

“Poe, this is ridiculous,” Finn’s voice came through worried, but sounding like he was hoping Poe would do it anyway.

“Nonsense, Finn. I’ve got this,” he answered, hoping his reassuring smile travel through.

“Captain Wexley to Resistance pilots,” Snap announced into the messy collective communication line between the pilots, “we are going to get Commander Dameron into that Destroyer, _untouched_ , got it?”

A chorus of ‘yessir’ and ‘excuse me’ sounded. It was now or never, Poe guessed.

“Punch it, BB-8.”

* * *

The trip from point A to point B was more bumpy than necessary, Poe thought. The TYE-wing shook under the stress of going faster than it was ever made to. It tried to emit the signature scream of TIE fighters, but it came out more high-pitched than normal like someone blowing way too hard into a slide whistle. At least the solid, consistent thudding of BB-8 behind kept him grounded in the moment which was _oh my god I am going to die by hurdling myself_ into _the First Order_.

X-wings zipped all around him, flashes of red dancing off of the reinforced glass of the ship. He used his whole body to steer the barreling hunk of metal out of the way of stray laserfire. The cabin was starting to smell like the smoke that was rising from the controls, and Poe was definitely not enjoying the thought of having two ships burst into flames on him in one day. He pulled the coolant lever, sacrificing the potential drop in speed and efficiency for less flames, hopefully. The lever broke off in his hands before reaching halfway down its’ slot.

“Shit!” Poe exclaimed. BB-8 beeped at him about his language, the hypocrite.

“Everything good?” Snap asked over the commotion.

“Yeah! Course, SNAFU, Snap,” Poe mostly screamed as the TYE jerked hard. He heard Snap chuckle, the bastard.

He was approaching the open hangar quickly, finally breaking the oxygen shield around the Destroyer when he felt the engine of the TYE completely give out. At this point, Poe was just yelling, desperately trying to keep control of the busted ship heading straight toward Rey and Kylo, willing it to lean directly into Kylo, actually. All the controls were dead as he shot right between the two.

The pain in his body was multiplied as he crashed his ship into a wall for the second time in an hour. Certainly not his best day on flight record, but probably, he hoped, not his worst so far. But that pain was _nothing_ compared to the full body uncomfort and violation he had when he _felt_ Ren without physically being next to him. Remnants of his past invasions spurred to life in his mind, immediately wiring him to fight or flight, but his TYE definitely couldn’t take another go in the field.

Poe scrambled out of the destroyed ship, pulling BB-8 out of the wreckage with him, running over to where Finn was crouched behind crates, firing at stray stormtroopers to cover Rey. She’d been pushed back farther than she originally was from Kylo due to Poe swooping in and stealing all the attention, something he was prone to doing. 

“Poe,” Finn gasped out when he and BB-8 reached him. Poe couldn’t find it in him to respond just yet, his chest heaving to get the right amount of air back in them. For a second he wasn’t in this First Order ship, but another one, and he couldn’t move his hands, and there was someone else in his head, and he was screaming, and-

And then there was a hand on his chest, right over his sputtering heart, sending a warmth down deeper than the surface. It was nothing like the cold, invasive shards of Ren. It was almost like Leia’s reassuring hand on his shoulder when he came back from his first mission where he lost a pilot, like the last time he saw Luke through the leaves of the reborn Great Tree. It was most like the hug Rey threw at him when they met. But it felt _exactly_ like hands gripping his wrists tight and a longshot. And Poe just stared up at Finn.

“You’re force sensitive,” he whispered, hoping Finn heard him, but he knew he more than likely felt it through him.

Finn laughed, outrageous at a time like this, but a smile spilt his face, and Poe was helpless against it. “Rey’s been teaching me what she’s learned with Luke.” The pride in his eyes is nearly enough to get Poe back up on his feet and fight Kylo and the rest of the First Order himself. “I didn’t,” Finn sheepishly ducked his head from a slight embarrassment of not telling Poe sooner, and ducked his head further from a stray blaster, “I didn’t want to tell anybody until I was sure.”

“But I am. I’ve got something, I feel something,” Finn said, his other hand going to rest on his own chest with a giddy excitement overtaking his movements. “I’ve got something for myself. Not from the First Order.”

And _that’s_ what gets Poe’s ass back in gear, because Poe’s sat behind some crates that a bound to set ablaze by the fire they’re taking, and he can hear the clashing of sabers every so often, but more of Rey’s taunts and Kylo’s screams. _Good,_ Poe thought. She’s tiring him out, using her scrappy ways from Jakku, while Kylo acts like the petulant kid Poe remembers him as. Finn was sending back fire as Poe lost himself in his head.

“Finn,” Poe called.

“Yeah?” Finn doesn’t look down at him, perched slightly over the crates, his blaster aim hitting every mark.

“Finn,” Poe called again, and there must be something in his voice, because Finn hunched back down to face him, worry etched in the space between his eyes.

Before he could say anything, Poe pulled him closer by the fabric of his shirt until they were a breath apart. Finn’s lips parted, and Poe resisted the urge to use his own to fill the space. “Is this okay?” 

It really wasn’t the time, or the place, or the way he wanted to do this at all, but Poe had never been one for planning, and there were some things in life that he wasn’t willing to give up just because of the job he took.

“Yes,” Finn breathed, and closed the space between them. There wasn’t fireworks, or long-awaited realizations, but there was a feeling like coming home, like the sunshine on Yavin, or a soft breeze from the waters of D’Qar. Poe hoped Finn had the same feeling. Something about the way his hand came up to rest on the back of his neck told him he did.

Brought back to reality, they simply stared at each other for a second before Finn nodded. “That was nice.” Poe hummed an affirmative.

“We should do that when we’re not getting shot at sometime,” Finn continued. He adjusted the collar of his shirt that Poe had messed up.

“I’ll put it in my planner,” Poe chuckled. “Bee, go find the Falcon and stay put, buddy.” Poe patted the droid before he gently pushed it, urging him to go. BB-8 chirped and whistled in an uncompromising tone. His tenacity made Poe laugh fondly, still amazed at how BB’s personality drive turned out how it has. “Yes, I’ll be meeting you there. Don’t worry.”

Poe then stood up as much as he could against the diminishing coverage of the crates, and reached out a hand for Finn. It fit so nicely against his own, and it gripped strong as Poe pulled him up and ran like hell to where Rey was. Finn used his other hand to keep shooting at the Stormtroopers that seemed to be multiplying.

Rey stood feet in front of a kneeling Kylo Ren, who looked like he was vibrating in rage, when it was really just the huge hangar finally beginning to destabilize in the war raging around it. She looked tired, and the thrashing wind blew her robe violently around her legs. Finn came up on her right side, careful of the saber she held in reverse grip, and unclipped his own saber hilt from his belt. Poe hadn’t noticed it before, but recognized it when it flared to life, glowing a bright green.

“No,” Poe said in disbelief with a smile creeping onto his face. To see Finn with Luke’s old lightsaber gave him a new wave of hope mixed with old memories.

Both Rey and Finn turned their heads to face him. “ _Yes_ ,” they said, giddy and itching to go. “Luke still has his, we found this one in Artoo. Pretty good backup.” Finn said as he twisted his wrist and settled his grip.

Poe _wished_ he could have pulled out his own saber, just to completely fuck with Kylo, but instead he pulled his trusty blaster out from his holster and readied up to do what he does best: shoot at Kylo Ren. Not for the first time since Rey and Finn had found themselves in the resistance, Poe felt like he wasn’t fighting a losing battle. There were the long months he spent searching for the starmap to Luke where he might as well have found the elixir to long-lasting life before he found Luke, and in the end, he couldn’t even finish his mission. Rey and Finn did that, but Poe didn’t feel jealous. He felt an overwhelming sense of pride for them, knowing that there was still unbridled good in his war-torn galaxy.

Finn and Rey shared a look as Poe leveled his blaster at Kylo, having felt his faith in them through their connection to the force. They knew Poe wasn’t force sensitive like them, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t connected to it at all, having grown up with the Great Tree in his yard and Leia and Luke watching over him. He was connected, but not in control of it, just simply a part of it.

“You’re done,” Rey yelled across the distance at Kylo as he stood, over the sound of the hangar creaking and blaster fire. Screams of TIE fighters drifted in and out of the background and X-wing lasers flashed strobe light at them. She then chose that moment to sprint full-tilt at him, flipping her saber into a forward, offensive grip. 

“Oh! Oh shit!” Finn called after her and started running, too. If Poe had been one year older, he probably would have died from cardiac arrest, and he felt a sudden pang of sympathy for Leia for having to deal with him doing crackpot shit like that for as long as he can remember.

Where Kylo was all swing, Rey dodged easily. His arcs were wide enough to invade where both Finn and Rey stood, given his size. His red saber sizzled too close for Poe’s comfort, and from what he could tell, Finn’s. It was clear enough to all of them that Finn was still shaky offensive techniques, so Kylo switched tactics and started targeting him. Finn fought defensive, parrying and countering attacks, leaving Kylo off balance and open. Poe shot coverage fire at the approaching Troopers, engaged in close combat when they creeped up far enough. If Rey and Finn didn’t finish up with Kylo soon, Poe knew he would be overwhelmed soon. There were too many to keep up with by himself, but he would give them as much time as he could before even thinking about giving up.

He turned back to see Rey’s lightsaber skittering across the floor towards him. He ran at it, scooping it up and hurling it back at her, when a stray blaster beam clipped his shoulder. Slipping to one knee, Poe gasped. He’d been hit by a blaster before, many times even, but every time, it burned like hell. As much as he would like to shake the pain out of his arm, he knew that it was definitely a bad idea to do that, so he cradled it in his chest, keeping it out of the way of his shooting arm. Finn must’ve seen, because he made a start at Poe while Rey charged Kylo again, but Poe waved him off, and flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile, not a grimace.

The past adrenaline rushes of crashing two ships in one god damn day seemed to have depleted _all_ of the adrenaline in his body, because he was _really_ feeling this burn. Every move he made reignited the wound and sent sparks down his entire left arm. He was tired, so tired. He missed Black One, and BB-8, and the rest of his squadron’s chatter constantly in his ear.

Poe looked back again to see Kylo gaining ground, his random and wild swings forcing Finn and Rey back if they wanted to keep their hands. He couldn’t see their faces, but they looked scared. They weren’t made for this, weren’t trained for this. Rey was just a lonely kid from a desert planet, a scavenger. She didn’t ask for this. And Finn… Finn was Finn. Finn was someone who did the right thing _because_ it was the right thing. And Finn was currently deflecting an intense overhead swing from a wannabe Sith Lord.

Rey swung at Kylo and hit enough of his arm for him to back away. There was a certain amount of space between them that Poe could have considered courteous. He could never understand that part of lightsaber training when Ben would visit with Leia and Han, telling Poe how Luke told him that a Jedi must be patient, and that there is an honor in a lightsaber fight. Poe would think and think on it, but the fighter pilot in him always screamed at him to take the shot. So he did.

Poe raised his blaster and shot right at Kylo. _Why not,_ he thought. _The only thing he did last time you did this was fucking freeze it in the air._ Poe didn’t care, he was on his last leg and it was starting to give.

To his surprise, and Kylo’s, it hit him. Hit his helmet square on and broke it off. Fell right to the ground. A hysterical giggle bubbled up in Poe. It hurt to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. It was the most ridiculous thing he had ever witnessed. But it didn’t last long, as Kylo staggered back, and Rey surged forward, and Poe saw the blue of her lightsaber peak over Kylo’s shoulder, through him.

 _It didn’t have to be like this,_ Poe aggressively thought into whatever the force might be, because even though Poe hated what he was, what he stood for, what he’d done, there was always the memory that Poe had known what he had been before: a kid. A snot of a kid, really, but a kid. And it always sucked to lose someone so young to something that would eat them alive if they let it.

The familiar rumble of X-wing engines filled his ears, but he didn’t look away. Kylo wasn’t looking at him, just stared straight ahead, like he was still processing what had happened. Poe knows it’s not from his memory when he sees Han in the same position, betrayal etched across his face, and a deep sadness courses through him.

Poe’s body chooses this time to stop supporting him. His knees hit the concrete first, and he tried to keep himself up. He dropped his blaster to steady himself in the crouch. He felt the same coldness of Kylo’s manipulation of the force in his head again before it was driven out by something he couldn’t be bothered to think about right now. The pilots of the X-wings rushed past him to get to where Rey and Kylo are, not Finn because Poe saw his blur of a body making its way toward him. His back muscles spasmed and he almost fell flat on his face, but there was an arm around his waist, gently leaning him back into a body. He let his legs splay in front of him and tilted his head up to look at Finn.

“Hey buddy,” he tried to twist around to look at Finn better, but his body protested, staying where it was. He settled for reaching his hand up to find a perch on Finn’s neck, two fingers resting on his jaw. “Are you, are you okay? Is Rey okay?” His own voice sounded far away to him, and he struggled to keep his eyes open.

“We’re fine. We’re okay, Poe,” Finn’s voice sounded like he didn’t quite believe how he was telling the truth but he was. “Hey, keep your eyes open. Look at me, Poe.” 

Loud footsteps came up to them, but Poe couldn’t make out who it was. A new hand touched his forehead and he tried to recognize the voice, reached and reached, but his head felt like it was underwater. “There’s no medevacs, we’re on our own.”

“You’re an asshole,” the owner of the forehead hand told him. Poe giggled, floating around in his own head.

“Yeah, maybe,” he mumbled out, his voice sounding less like words the longer he laid in Finn’s arms. Again, it wasn’t the way Poe thought he would find himself being surrounded by Finn, but at some point, he had to take what he could get. The last thing he fully remembered was another pair of arms slipping underneath his back before his body decided that he had done enough and shut off the lights.

* * *

Poe woke up in what looked like a cottage, rather than a med bay. Evening sunlight shone through the open siding, giving sight to a shore. He realized he could hear the soft churning of water as it lapped up against the sand. Figures were sat out along the shore, spread out amongst themselves in the setting sun. The sheet that covered him was comfortable on him, a far cry from his previous stints under medical supervision, or lack thereof. His fist curled tightly in them, much more tightly than he intended, because it drew attention to him.

“Those are nice sheets, I would appreciate it if you were more gentle with them.”

Leia sat in a chair in the corner of the room. Her knees were crossed and her hair down from its’ usual coils in a single, simple braid. She looked relaxed, of all things, and for a second, Poe thought he must still be asleep, because everything that had happened hit him all at once. Falling out of the sky and crashing his ship, the evacuation, crashing another ship, kissing Finn, killing Kylo.

“Penny for your thoughts, Dameron,” Leia teased, a small smile on her lips. Poe couldn’t make sense of what was happening. He didn’t even know where he was.

“What day is it?” He croaked out.

“Taungsday.”

Good. Good, that meant he wasn’t out for long, only two days.

Leia sent him a sympathetic look, like she knew what he was thinking, and knew something he didn’t. “Taungsday about two weeks since we got here. You’ve been in and out.”

“Two weeks?” Poe repeated. He pulled himself up and his ribs twinged at the effort. He felt every movement he made, and he was thankful for the bedrest temporarily, because he knew if he did this a true two days after the fight, he would have passed out again. “Maker,” he sighed, and not so gracefully swung his legs over the side of the bed, he realized. It was a real bed, an honest to god bed. _Fuck_ , Poe wished he had been more conscious to fully appreiciate it.

“Poe-,” Leia started, but Poe charged ahead.

“Leia, I-” he tried. “I didn’t mean. I mean, I did, but that wasn’t- that wasn’t what I wanted to happen.” His hands shook where they rested on his knees, so he held them under his chin, clasped, and leaned forward. He felt guilt crawl up his throat, ashamed that he had played a part in her son’s death, that he had wanted to. He knew that Leia wouldn’t blame him, but that didn’t stop the irrational parts of his brain from blaming himself for a situation that was ultimately, tragically, a better outcome than most had expected. “I thought that maybe if we-”

“Poe,” Leia insisted, and left no room for argument. “I know.”

“But I-”

“I know.”

“Leia,” his voice broke.

“ _I know._ ”

Poe didn’t know when she moved from the chair to next to him, he only felt the dip in the mattress as she sat down. His whole body shook from his bouncing knee, and he couldn’t bring himself to look Leia in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Leia put her arms around Poe, and held on tight, and Poe choked on a sob. He brought his hands up to her back and gripped her tunic like his life depended on it. The sounds of mumbled apologies were shushed by Leia’s shoulder.

She allowed him to weep, and did not offer him empty reassurances. Poe let himself cry, finally, from his time on the Finalizer, from sitting at Finn’s bedside while he waited for both him and Rey to come back, from every single mission he’s ever gone on, from losing his mother. Poe cried for himself, for Leia and Han and Luke, for Rey and Finn, but mostly he cried because he was exhausted. This war had been going on for much longer than it was declared. The resistance had never left his blood, born into a war by two fighter pilots. He’d be fighting till he died, but for right now, even with so much still left to do, Poe was civilian, and he was grateful.

Poe pulled away and scrubbed a hand over his face. The blotchiness remained, but something deeper was wiped away, if only for a brief couple of moments. He looked out again to the shore and felt a pull in his gut towards it.

“They know you’re awake,” Leia stated, after she followed his eyeline out to the water. At Poe’s confused expression, she explained. “Felt it in the Force. You’ve made quite an impression on them, you know.”

“They’ve made an impression on me,” Poe professed, not turning from the opening to the hut.

Leia stood up from the cot and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ll learn that there’s good in this world that you don’t have to fight for. If you’re lucky enough, it’ll find you. Now go, before you start annoying me.”

Poe could only smile up at her, a little sad, but mostly thankful. He waited until she had left to go and look at himself in the small mirror hung up on a wall by the chair she sat in. His hair was unruly, as always, and there were bags under his eyes, despite his days of sleep, but he felt good. Like there wasn’t some looming threat dangling right in front of his face. Sure, there was still a long, long way to go, with the formation of the new New Republic, but it felt like the world had finally slowed long enough for Poe to take a breath and not have it knocked right out of his lungs.

The sound of the water crashing on the shore was growing irresistible, so Poe tried to work his hair into something semi-presentable as he walked out of the hut. The golden light of sunset hit him dead on, and he smiled into it as he climbed down the creaky wooden steps. When his bare feet hit the sand, a small giggle rumbled in his chest. The last time he was in sand was back on Jakku when he crashed the TIE fighter. He wiggled his feet down a bit further into it, laughing down at them, before he made his way down to the people by the water.

He saw Finn first, then Rey, then Jess and Snap, and everyone else scattered along the shore, and then Finn again. He wore simple clothes, something Poe would wear, because it was Poe’s clothes, he realized, and his smile moved to his whole face. Finn turned around before Poe’s steps would have been heard, and Poe felt that same warmth in his chest again.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe called out, and Finn started to make his way toward him, catching the light in a way that made Poe think of the how the old Jedi temples must have looked: serene, powerful, balanced, beautiful.

“You,” Finn waved a pointed finger at him, “are so unbelievably stupid.” Poe only shrugged when Finn’s finger hit his chest, giddy at seeing Finn annoyed with him, but it was quickly replaced with something else when Finn’s hands found perch on both sides of Poe’s face and he was dragged into a bruising kiss. Poe melted right into it, latching onto Finn by the waist. He heard Jess’s loud laugh from in front of him, and he started to smile so hard that he had to break the kiss.

“Don’t do that again,” Finn told Poe, whose face was still in his hands.

Poe’s brain was mush. “Kiss you?”

“No, you can do that again.”

“Oh, good.”

Finn beamed at him, but tried to put on an expression that was stern. It was ruined by the way he had to force the corners of his mouth down. “No more almost dying in my arms.” That turned his face a little more serious, and Poe moved his hand to cup his cheek. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Hey, I was fine,” Poe tried. Finn’s eyeballs almost popped out of his head. “Mostly fine.”

“Poe, you had internal bleeding.”

“That’s where the blood is supposed to be!”

Finn dropped his hands from Poe and just pointed a finger at him again before he walked away. He must have learned that from Han, Poe thought as he trailed behind him, his laughter drifting in the breeze. Finn reached a hand back without turning around and Poe hustled up to grab it.

They walked up to where Rey, Jess, and Snap were seated on the sand. There was a blanket laid out across it, covered in the tiny grains, and a sack that looked like it was once full of food. Snap quickly wrapped Poe in a crushing hug, yet he was gentle of his still healing injuries. 

“Welcome back, kid,” he huffed, muffled by where his face was buried in the crook of Poe’s neck.

“Thanks, Snap,” Poe said, pulling away, but still keeping his hands on his arms, now confused. Arms like these were the last thing he remembered before he passed out back on the First Order hangar. “Were you the one to put me in the Falcon?” he questioned, still struggling to put together the final minutes of their standoff with Ren.

Snap only laughed, and slapped his good shoulder. “Damn straight, and I was the one who kept you there because _you_ ,” he put an arm around Poe’s shoulder, bringing his head close, “wouldn’t sit still unless you could see Finn and Rey over there.”

Poe tried to keep the blush off his face, but he knew it was useless. At least Finn had the decency to look sheepish, but Rey just looked smug.

“Shut up,” he said as he smacked Snap’s hand on his chest. Realization flashed on Poe’s face after a second, and he whipped around to look at Snap. “You left your ship on that hangar? Oh, Snap, come on!” Poe wouldn’t admit how teary his eyes got for a second, but Snap knew anyway. It was a flyboy thing, really. Any pilot would mourn the loss of a ship, but when it was _your_ ship, there was something extra bitter about it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Snap hushed. It was more what he didn’t say that Poe heard. _I’d do it again, no hesitation._

Jess walked around them and laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “You know you’re giving Poe a run for his money in the softie department, right Wexley?” Poe’s retort was cut off by Jess pulling her arms back to her chest, dragging himself and Snap into her body. He barely missed smacking his forehead against Snap’s chin and he didn’t know whose chest he was laughing into specifically, but he didn’t care much, really. For once in his life, Poe was glad to be on the ground, surrounded by warm life instead of cold space.

The way Jess’s hand gripped the back of his shirt told him everything he knew she struggled with saying, and before he detached himself from them, he managed to plant an obnoxious kiss on Jess’s forehead. Jess scrunched up her nose, and Poe couldn’t help but shove her face away, like a sibling would.

Rey and Finn simply stood, letting the light wash over them. Golden hour was turning out to be much different on this planet than it was on D’Qar, with the sunset lasting hours instead of minutes. Again, Poe felt some kind of warmth, like the light on him was going directly into his blood. Rey said nothing as she held out her hand, silhouetted and delicate, strong and kind. Poe reached out his own, and a new kind of feeling met the warmth in his chest. It was like a crackling energy, an electric current running through his fingertips. It was nothing like the cold he had felt. Poe had felt the Force before, in his tree, from Kylo, from Finn, and now from Rey. He thought for a moment, realizing he had probably felt it from Leia, too, but he thought it might be more motherly love than anything.

For the second time since waking, tears found themselves in Poe’s eyes. Here were two people who were made heroes out of circumstance that used their first _real_ choice to save people. They could have taken the out. After Starkiller, Leia had offered them positions in the Resistance, but made no move for them. If they chose to, Poe could have smuggled them to the Outer Rim, found a relatively nice planet, and hoped to see them after the war. And Poe would have understood, he really would’ve. Some people just aren’t made for fighting. Poe wished he wasn’t, but he had barely known life in peacetime. Rey and Finn had barely known life _at all_. 

But the first choice they made was to stay. When Rey had stood from where she sat vigil at Finn’s bedside in D’Qar and told Poe she was going to find Luke, Poe’s head had snapped up from where it was drooping in exhaustion.

“Are you sure?” He had asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rey responded, leaning against the doorframe.

“I just,” Poe tried to reason. “I just thought maybe you’d wait till Finn woke up and then, I don’t know, fuck off somewhere. Away from all this?” He motioned at all the hustling bodies in the base, some walking, some running, some taking a quick nap where they thought no one would see.

She walked back over to him, eyebrows furrowed. “Poe. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

At that, Poe got up from his chair, stumbling over ways to explain what he meant, but Rey just laughed at him. She looked so young, so weathered from the Sun on Jakku. “And besides,” she said, sitting at the foot of Finn’s bed, resting a hand on his ankle, “I’ve got all I need here.”

The second she turned her eyes on him, wide and full of wonder, Poe got the sense that he was one of the things she had. A pilot she had barely known, but a pilot that brought Finn and BB-8 to her, and led her to a planet that wasn’t sand and heat and scavenging, and then back to himself and a shared room with plants in the window and ship sketches on the wall.

And when Finn woke up two weeks later, Poe had offered him the same thing. Told him that he could take him to Maz’s new bazar when she got it up and running and he could find something to do that wasn’t directly war.

“I was there when the First Order destroyed it,” Finn said, pulling a thread loose on the sheet that covered him. “They didn’t care about anything, they broke statues and killed people, Poe. All because they were told to. And then the Resistance fighters came, and Poe, you should’ve seen them.” Finn looked at him with a soft determination. “I was going to leave then. Really, I was, but when I saw that Han and Chewy and I weren’t alone, I didn’t want to anymore. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to be that person for others, if you’ll let me.”

Poe let out a watery laugh. He had seen Finn fighting against the stormtroopers, had heard people tell the tale of the traitor already, heard that there was unrest amongst the ranks, that there was a little more guns left unfired than there were before. 

“You already are, buddy.” Poe leaned on his elbows on Finn’s bed, moving closer to him. “I think I’d even follow you back to Jakku if we needed to,” he said incredulously.

Finn flopped back onto his pillows. “Please, no more Jakku.” And all Poe could do was smile back at him.

By the time Rey had come back with Luke, Finn had started training to be a Pathfinder, but after the meeting Leia had held with Poe, Luke, Rey, and Finn, he had split his time between his Pathfinder duties and doing whatever the hell Luke taught Rey. Poe didn’t think much of it at the time, he had heard stories of non-sensitives using lightsabers before and had just assumed that’s what Finn was doing, considering his previous run in with the Dark Side. So Poe spent his days running missions, fixing up Black One and BB-8 when he had the spare parts, and turning his single bunk into a place for three. 

“Falcon to Black One, buddy. You there?” Finn’s voice pulled him out of his memory, and another hand in his free one brought him back to the beach.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m here,” Poe answered as he made to sit in the sand, dragging Finn and Rey with him. He draped an arm over Finn’s shoulders and felt his heart skip a beat when Finn went to loosely intertwine their fingers. Rey sat cross legged next to them, her hand rested on Poe’s knee, leaving a slight tingle. His mother’s ring laid heavy on his neck, not with sorrow, but with a feeling that it might finally belong on another hand with time. Poe had learned to be impulsive, but for the moment, he let himself watch the tide fall in and out on a planet he didn’t know and still felt at home.

Poe had always believed in the Force, in the Light and the Dark, and the Jedi and the Sith, but mostly, he believed in people. He believed in hope and the idea that it only takes one person to light a spark. He knew that the fight wasn’t over, but the fact that he could sit and watch the sunset calmed his heart. For a moment, he was just Poe, and he was holding Finn’s hand, and Rey was leaning into him, and for a moment, it was enough. It was all enough.

**Author's Note:**

> did I give poe a speech pattern? yes. did I kinda of make finn and rey a dyad? yes. did I hint that rey still has force lightning because I like the idea of her being that strong in the force without being a palpatine? yes. did I not retcon poe's entire back story? yes. have I been hired to rewrite the sequel trilogy? no, not yet.
> 
> thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it c: <3


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